• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.19-37
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• 2015

Forming interfirm collaborative relationships has become a key aspect of a firm's marketing strategies to create value for customers and achieve greater firm performance. While empirical findings are mixed in previous studies, this study is an effort to identify boundary conditions for the benefits of marketing alliances. We investigate internal and environmental factors that may magnify or constrain the effect of marketing alliances on firm profitability. Given the complementary relationship between marketing and R&D activities, we focus on a firm's R&D intensity as an internal factor that may magnify the value of marketing alliances for firm performance. For environmental factors, we focus on industry turbulence and industry competitiveness. Industry turbulence refers to the degree to which industry market conditions change quickly and unpredictably, whereas industry competitiveness refers to the degree to which a firm faces competition in the industry. By testing these factors, we are intended to reveal boundary conditions that determine the value of marketing alliances for firm profitability. The analysis of firms in the diverse industries shows that while the main effect of marketing alliances on firm profitability is not significant, it becomes more positive when R&D investment is more intensive or when industry environment is more turbulent. The results of this study imply that just forming more marketing alliances may not be enough to increase firm profitability. Our findings imply that marketing alliances become more effective in a dynamically changing industry environment. That is, firms can cope with industry uncertainties more effectively by forming marketing alliances. At the same time, the moderating effect of R&D intensity implies that the internal investments in R&D magnify the effect of marketing alliances on firm profitability. The findings of this study contributes to the existing alliance literature in three aspects. First, this study enhances our understanding of the contingent value of marketing alliances by testing both internal and external factors that may influence the effectiveness of marketing alliances. Second, this study responds to the need for research that investigates actual performance resulting from interfirm relationships. Third, while previous studies primarily focused on a specific industry, this study extend previous findings of the boundary conditions for the benefits of marketing alliances in a broader context.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.156-172
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• 2007

The high-tech industry is the economic lifeline for Taiwan. Its characteristics are short product life cycle, rapid changes in the market, and a high obsolescence rate for new products. Under globalization, the high-tech industry has adopted Information Technology (IT) to shorten the manufacturing process, reduce costs and conduct product research and development (R&D) to increase the core competence of enterprises and achieve the goal of sustainable operations. Enterprises should actively strengthen their integration with internal and external resources and lead in R&D management to increase industrial operating performance. Effectively managing operations and R&D management evaluation in Taiwan's High-tech Industry has become a critical subject. This study adopted 4 major Balanced Scorecard (BSC) perspectives to establish the Total Performance Evaluation Indicators for the R&D management department in Taiwan's High-tech Industry. The Analytic Network Process (ANP) was applied to evaluate the overall performance of the R&D management department. The research framework is divided into 2 phases. The first phase is combined with the 4 major perspectives, Financial, Customer, Internal Business Process and Learning and Growth, as the related indicators for each measurement perspective. The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were selected using Factor Analysis to identify the key factor from the complicated indicators. The relationship between the characteristics of each BSC's evaluation perspective is dependence and feedback. This study applied ANP to conduct the calculation and adjustment of correlation between each KPI, and determine on their relative weights for the objective KPI. The "Financial Perspective" for R&D management department in Taiwan's High-tech Industry focused on the budget achievement rate of R&D management. The weight indicator value is (0.05863). The "Customer Perspective" focused on problem-solving satisfaction. The weight value of this indicator is (0.17549). The "Internal Business Process Perspective" focused on the quantity and quality of R&D. The weight value of this indicator is (0.13506). The "Learning and Growth Perspective" focused on improving competence in the research personnel's professional techniques. The weight value of this indicator is (0.02789). From the total weighting indicators, the order of the Performance Indicators for the R&D management department in Taiwan's High-tech Industry is: (1) Customer Perspective; (2) Internal Business Process Perspective; (3) Financial Perspective; and (4) Learning and Growth Perspective.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.204-211
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• 2008

Polyethylene(PE) pipes have been widely used as they are easy to construct and suitable for economical efficient when they are compared with metal pipelines. This paper studied the effect of various external loadings on stress and deflection of the buried PE pipes using Finite Element Method(FEM). For this purpose, stresses of buried PE pipes were calculated according to the loading condition such as pipe types(pipe diameter $50{\sim}400mm$), burial depths($0.6{\sim}1.2m$) and internal pressures($0.4{\sim}4bar$). As a result, it was founded the effect and relation with each of loading conditions under the buried condition.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.4717-4721
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• 2014

Background: Dosimetric comparison of two dimensional (2D) radiography and three-dimensional computed tomography (3D-CT) based dose distributions with high-dose-rate (HDR) intracavitry radiotherapy (ICRT) for carcinoma cervix, in terms of target coverage and doses to bladder and rectum. Materials and Methods: Sixty four sessions of HDR ICRT were performed in 22 patients. External beam radiotherapy to pelvis at a dose of 50 Gray in 27 fractions followed by HDR ICRT, 21 Grays to point A in 3 sessions, one week apart was planned. All patients underwent 2D-orthogonal and 3D-CT simulation for each session. Treatment plans were generated using 2D-orthogonal images and dose prescription was made at point A. 3D plans were generated using 3D-CT images after delineating target volume and organs at risk. Comparative evaluation of 2D and 3D treatment planning was made for each session in terms of target coverage (dose received by 90%, 95% and 100% of the target volume: D90, D95 and D100 respectively) and doses to bladder and rectum: ICRU-38 bladder and rectum point dose in 2D planning and dose to 0.1cc, 1cc, 2cc, 5cc, and 10cc of bladder and rectum in 3D planning. Results: Mean doses received by 100% and 90% of the target volume were $4.24{\pm}0.63$ and $4.9{\pm}0.56$ Gy respectively. Doses received by 0.1cc, 1cc and 2cc volume of bladder were $2.88{\pm}0.72$, $2.5{\pm}0.65$ and $2.2{\pm}0.57$ times more than the ICRU bladder reference point. Similarly, doses received by 0.1cc, 1cc and 2cc of rectum were $1.80{\pm}0.5$, $1.48{\pm}0.41$ and $1.35{\pm}0.37$ times higher than ICRU rectal reference point. Conclusions: Dosimetric comparative evaluation of 2D and 3D CT based treatment planning for the same brachytherapy session demonstrates underestimation of OAR doses and overestimation of target coverage in 2D treatment planning.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.454-490
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• 2018

This paper examined the nonlinear relationships between external knowledge sources and the innovation performance of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Using 3,218 firm-year panel data in South Korea, this study found that increasing the number of external knowledge channels out of the value chain increases radical innovation. Meanwhile, increasing the number of external knowledge channels within the value chain increases the incremental innovation. Further, the external sources of knowledge both out of and in the value chain had inverted U-shaped relationships on radical and incremental innovation respectively. This finding implies that a mechanism of diminishing returns works in the relationship between the external sources of knowledge and innovation. The study also identified the synergistic effects between the external sources of knowledge out of the value chain and within the value chain, and confirmed that the synergistic effects strengthen the linear mechanism between the external sources of knowledge and innovation. In addition, this study found that the sources of knowledge both out of and within the value chain positively moderate the relationships between R&D investment and radical innovation of SMEs.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.49-72
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• 2016

Extant research on firm innovation productivity is limited in measuring the innovation productivity, in which they measured firm innovation productivity by using either inputs or outputs of innovation. The present study complemented the extant research by employing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to measure firm innovation productivity. Furthermore, this paper examined the effects of firms' external knowledge search, as one of open innovation practices, on firm innovation productivity, for open innovation activities are regarded as an influencing factor on firm innovation productivity in the previous literatures. Using the data of the Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) of manufacturing industries conducted in 2008, this study developed hypotheses in which we considered not only two dimensions of external knowledge search (breadth and depth) but also two subtypes of external knowledge search (market-driven and science-driven). The results found that searching deeply and market-driven search are positively related to firm innovation productivity, but science-driven search is somewhat negatively related to firm innovation productivity. Furthermore, market-driven search can mitigate the negative effect of science-driven search on innovation productivity.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.292-317
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• 2015

As modern science and technology and warfare become to be advanced and precise, the weapon systems becomes more complex based on state-of-the-art technology. Therefore, firms in the defense industry continue to accelerate research and development for up-to-date weapon systems with high complexity which urge the firms to collaborate with the external organizations to obtain the knowledge required and eventually to reduce costs and risk. This study tries an empirical study about the effect of collaboration on the innovation performances from the network analysis perspective. By surveying collaboration relationships among 530 firms in the Korean defense industry, we analyzed the alliance network of the defense industry. Network centrality including degree, closeness, and betweenness centralities is investigated and then the relationship among the network centrality property, internal R&D capabilities and innovation is analysed. The results show that firms with high internal R&D capabilities place the firm at center of the network. On the other hand, except for the firms with highly connected centrality, no relationship was found between the internal R&D capabilities and its performance and in turn. these capabilities had both direct and indirect effects on innovation performances through mediated collaboration among firms. This study implied that Korean firms with a high internal R&D capabilities in the defense industry which utilize knowledge, information and resources within the network more frequently show more innovative performance. This result claims the policy makers to participate more firms in fostering open innovation for the defense industry.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.431-465
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• 2011

Focusing on open innovation which is regarded as an important framework for strengthening technological innovation capabilities, in this study empirical analysis is conducted on Korean manufacturing companies, particularly based on the survey results of 149 domestic manufacturing companies that carry out innovation activities in order to identify influence factors for open innovation activities. Analysis on the influence factors of open innovation activities categorized into characteristics of environment, firm-specific characteristics, and characteristics of institutions revealed that characteristics of environment in terms of the degree of market competition and technological changes influence outside-in open innovation activities. Such results suggest that companies respond to increased market competition or technological changes by promoting research and development (R&D) and maintaining or acquiring market competitiveness through introduction of external technology and utilization of external information by means of research collaboration, user innovation, and so on. In terms of firm-specific characteristics, outside-in open innovation activities are influence by R&D personnel, R&D investment, number of international business, export, and openness of corporate culture while inside-out open innovation activities are influenced by characteristics of international organization and CEO's capabilities. In order for companies to strengthen outside-in open innovation activities emphasis on research personnel, R&D input factors such as research funds are necessary whereas to increase inside-out open innovation activities organization solely responsible for international affairs should be established while the CEO needs to focus on open and cooperative entrepreneurship rather than internal technological innovation activities. In terms of characteristics of institutions, outside-in innovation activities are influenced by technological networking whereas inside-out innovation activities are influenced by networking for development of technology and the presence in industrial cluster. This means that the government needs to establish industrial clusters and try to expand technological networking to facilitate open innovation activities.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.325-330
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• 2012

This paper describes the structural analysis and optimization of stiffeners used in inner tanks for liquid natural gas (LNG) storage, so that the costs can be minimized while the critical buckling load of the inner tank still exceeds the external pressure exerted by the perlite. The original calculation of perlite pressure applied to the inner tank was based on Zick's code, which led to the overestimation of the external pressure, and consequently, an oversized stiffener. In this study, the effects of the material properties of perlite on the external pressure distribution are scrutinized, and the optimum dimensions of a single stiffener are finally obtained through a series of parametric studies. A 15% decrease in the cost of the stiffener compared with the original design is achieved.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.11
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• pp.1868-1878
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• 2016

This paper proposes a novel velocity estimator for long-term underwater navigation of autonomous underwater vehicles(AUVs). Provided that an external position fix is not given, a viable goal in designing a underwater navigation algorithm is to reduce the divergence rate of position error only using the sporadic velocity information obtained from Doppler velocity log(DVL). For such case, the performance of underwater navigation eventually depends on accuracy and reliability of external velocity information. This motivates us to devise a velocity estimator which can drastically enhance the navigation performance even when the DVL measurement is unavailable. Incorporating the Gertler-Hagen hydrodynamics model of an AUV with the measurement models of velocity and depth sensors, the velocity estimator design problem is resolved using the extended Kalman filter. Different from the existing methods in which an AUV simulator is regarded as a virtual sensor, our approach is less sensitive to the model uncertainty often encountered in practice. This is because our velocity filter estimates the simulator errors with sensor aids and furthermore compensates these errors based on the indirect feedforward manner. Through the simulations for typical AUV navigation scenarios, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated.